The Opporttunity and Threats of COVID-19: Lessons from the Perspective of Older Adults

The emergence of a new disease called COVID-19 has led to a worldwide pan-demic, and most countries have implem-ented strict health guidelines, including quarantine and social distancing. The aim of the present study is to understand the experience of social distancing and staying at home laws from the perspective of the elderly. A qualitative thematic analysis method was employed, and semi-structured interviews were conducted using snowball sampling with 19 individ-uals between 65 and 85 years of age.
 
In order to observe the health protocols, the interviews were conducted by telep-hone. Data were analyzed using the Braun and Clark thematic analysis method, and three main themes including Blessings, Threats and Strategies were extracted. According to the findings, participants have experienced a combination of po-sitive and negative emotions during their stay at home, and it seems that the wisdom of old age has helped them to use/create coping strategies to overcome their pro-blems. Given that maintaining social relationships is critical for most people of this age, families need to be able to explain the situation in a proper and clear manner, and to provide a variety of opportunities of social relationship for the elderly while following health guidelines.